Telecom & Media Viewpoint
Cost Reduction in the Telecom Industry
Why operators need to act now to escape from the low-profit spiral
The telecoms industry in Europe and the US is at risk of becoming a low profit business. Margins are under pressure and could
drop from the current figure of 35 - 40% to as low as 15% within 5 years. Cost management has to become an inherent core
competence for wireless and wireline operators. Significant cost reductions are only possible with substantial changes in the
business/operating model. New pressures will mean a change in mindset and the ability to ‘think outside the box’. Arthur D.
Little has successfully managed this process with many operators.
Introduction – Operators embarked on a low-profit spiral
Pressure on prices and margins is a situation faced by almost all
operators. The telecom scenario shows a world going “flat” with
abundant voice and data volumes while the cost of promotional
discounts to attract new customers increases. As a result
revenues and EBITDA margins are under strong pressure, a trend
which can be clearly seen in the recent financial results of the
top players in the telecoms market. Only Deutsche Telekom and
Verizon have escaped this trend (see Figure 1).
Cost reduction – Unknown costs cannot be efficiently
managed
Operators have to protect margins when ARPUs are under
pressure and simultaneously new technologies trigger new
CAPEX. Should the forthcoming FTTx & LTE spending fail to
In order to excel in OPEX and CAPEX management, full cost
transparency must be established in order to identify, prioritize and
optimize additional saving measures. Usually the obvious areas
will already have been targeted in the first cycle of cost cutting.
Therefore the challenge is to find the hidden potential by enabling
a broader audience to act cost sensitive. For this reason the first
phase of the cost reduction project needs to focus on establishing
a stringent OPEX/CAPEX analysis.
Figure 1. Relative development of telecom revenues
and EBITDA
Revenue (% change)
25
20
15
Vodafone
Verizon
10
Deutsche Telekom
Telenor
5
NTT
0
AT&T
France Telecom
-5
Telefonica
KPN
Telecom Italia
-10
-15
-20
-25
-60
trigger the type of substantial product innovations that the
customer is willing to pay for, the need for cost cutting will
continue. This is demonstrated when looking at the illustrative
projection of an operator with a -3% revenue CAGR and +2%
inflation based OPEX CAGR (see Figure 2). In this scenario EBITDA
will drop from 35% to 15% within five years. A low EBITDA level
in an infrastructure business like the telecommunications industry
puts investor returns at risk. To prevent this scenario, operators
need to find new innovative ways to reduce costs.
British Telecom
-50
-40
-30
H1 2009 vs. 2008
Source: Arthur D. Little
-20
-10
0
H2 2008 vs. 2007
10
20
30
40
50
60
EBITDA (% change)
Organizations do not always have the data available to act in a cost
conscious manner. Many issues can inhibit an organization’s cost
management ranging from system or process based barriers to
political or emotionally driven behavior. The staff responsible for
defining strategies, rollout plans and architectures need to know
the current cost drivers and the potential alternatives.
Telecom & Media Viewpoint
Operational saving measures – Enable and incentivize a
broader audience to improve cost efficiency
Figure 2. Illustrative EBITDA development
EBITDA %
Revenue -3% CAGR
OPEX +2% CAGR
Y0
Y1
Y2
Y3
Y4
Y5
Source: Arthur D. Little
Rather than beginning by collecting the data from different
departments which is likely to result in inconsistency, the entire
cost basis must first be provided from the top-down, e.g. by the
controlling department. These costs can then be categorized and
interpreted bottom-up by the responsible departments leading
to a controlled ‘single source of truth’. This approach provides the
systematic root-cause analysis necessary to identify and steer cost
drivers and to identify saving initiatives.
A prioritization of saving initiatives is vital to manage available
implementation resources effectively. A common approach is
to prioritize based on expected saving benefits and required
implementation effort and risk.
Organizations need to develop specific cost management skills
in line with the four clusters of saving measures (see Figure 3), of
which the following two are of particular interest:
nn
nn
Operational saving measures (low benefit and low effort)
need to be constantly identified and realized within day-to-day
operations.
Operational saving measures are considered as activities which
render saving benefits of typically in the range of 10% p.a..
These measures include obvious examples like the change
of maintenance service level and backhauling optimization or
reduction of product portfolio. Less obvious cost saving measures
include the introduction of QoS concepts for optimized bandwidth
management, reduction of room temperature in local exchanges
or the ceasing of 3rd party hardware maintenance for stable
legacy infrastructure where better maintenance know-how is often
already available in-house.
There are also a broad range of new OPEX saving possibilities
which can be leveraged through a new generation of technologies,
e. g. in the area of software defined radio networks (SDR) and self
organized networks (SON). In addition, energy efficiency becomes
more central to the discussion when selecting the next patch of
network elements.
Overall, operators need to identify and realize the operational
saving measures on an ongoing basis, year on year. Specific
organizational skills need to be developed, including:
A cost conscious company culture
A basic cost reduction mechanism and culture across all staff must
be in place (e. g. personal target setting, cost transparency, etc.).
The challenge is to have a culture in place to constantly challenge
the existing cost basis.
Appropriate procedures & tools
Even after fulfilling the key requirement of providing cost
transparency there are still barriers to overcome. Often the
Implementation of strategic saving measures (high benefit and 1 Rectangle graphics
misalignment between the unit responsible for the budget and the
high effort) need to be ensured within a reasonable timeframe
unit influencing the cost drivers reduces cost efficiency measures.
without being re-prioritized due to day-to-day market pressure.
Figure 3. Exemplary clustering of saving measures
(ADL case example) including generic need to
develop specific cost management skills
high
Quick wins
Optimizing
rental OPEX
Benefit
low
Company
license mgmt.
Operational saving
measures
Residential
Digitalization
last mile inventory
SME
Ceasing TDM maintenance
Key
Accounts
Dropped measures
Effort/Risk
Source: Arthur D. Little
2 Cost Reduction in the Telecom Industry
high
Plan
Build
Run
Wireline
4G network
cooperation
Joint wireline &
wireless purchasing
Ceasing 2G
Optimizing printing
HW maintenance
& postage
Reducing voice/BB
platform maintenance
Integrating fix &
Internalization
mobile signaling
of freelancers
low
Requirements
Strategic saving
measures
Billing/CRM IT
consolidation
Server
virtualization
Figure 4. ADL case study example of an aligned network
rollout process for wireline and wireless
External1)
Need to develop
specific cost
management
skills
Project
Site
SubCodesign & identifi- mission ordination
Strategic
planning cation,
of conplanning
acquisition
struction
(network
Opera& per& inarchitectional
missions
stallation
ture
planning
& design,
(annual
rollout
rollout
Wireless
principles,
portfolio
network
Site
SubComgmt) Project
5 year
design & identifi- mission ordination
roadplanning cation,
of conmap)
acquisition
struction
& per& inmissions
stallation
Procurement
Supplier management
Controlling
Financial & operational controlling
Management
Management functions & program management
Closing
CorrecTive &
preventive
maintenance
Operations
Closing
CorrecTive &
preventive
maintenance
1) e.g. government, municipalities, site sharing partners, architects
Source: Arthur D. Little
Telecom & Media Viewpoint
Cross-unit alignment
service centers) or network (e. g. civil works consolidation, rollout
optimization,…see Figure 4). However there are also certain
barriers to overcome (see separate case study).
To optimize OPEX and CAPEX a dialogue between the strategic
and operation representatives (e. g. network and IT) needs to be
ensured, in order to prioritize and balance cost increasing and cost
cutting activities. Multiple technology ecosystems increasingly
compete against each other (e. g. IPTV vs. DTH, ADSL vs. HSPA,
VDSL/FTTx vs. LTE, macro rollout vs. femto deployment…) and
the need for alignment is vital.
Another rejuvenated trend is in the area of wireless network
sharing and outsourcing. Even though network sharing is a well
known cost cutting approach it has been given more prominence
following the recent industry announcements of the joint venture
between T-Mobile and Orange in the UK which targets EUR 270
mio. p.a. savings and between PCCW and Hutchison in Hong
Kong (see Figure 5).
Alignment of long-term vs. short term objectives
Often project tasks are in competition to long term strategic
measures or even long term saving initiatives (e. g. a business
requirement implemented as a workaround into a legacy software
application). This perspective changes, when project budgets are
forced from the beginning to include the costs required to reverse
the workaround at a later stage.
The need for these partnerships is driven by the continuing cost
pressure of a highly competitive market environment. The pending
investments for upcoming 4G rollouts (e. g. LTE) provides an
additional argument to strike a new path. Cost optimization has
to consider future OPEX and CAPEX of planned projects and
investments. The possibility of co-operation needs to be evaluated
now, before the option space is limited as potential partners
commit to competing operators. Strategic saving measures – Larger savings require bold
strategic measures
Conclusion
As most operators have already gone through multiple cost
reduction cycles it is a big challenge to identify significant additional
saving levers. Larger saving benefits require in most cases
strategic measures which involve changes of the business or
operating model.
All players in the telecoms market will be forced to reduce their
long term costs. Incumbents will be affected to the same extent
as alternative operators. Arthur D. Little expects these players to
initiate cost saving measures year on year.
An example is the recent announcement of Deutsche Telekom to
consolidate the wireline and wireless organization, where the costaspect was one of a number of key arguments. This has re-ignited
the fixed-mobile consolidation process in the industry. A few
incumbent front-runners like Swisscom and KPN already started
this process some years ago and now present themselves as true
FMC-companies in front of the customers.
The management has to ensure that the organization acts
cost consciously to leverage operational saving measures. The
organization has to have the tools and procedures, including full
cost transparency, in place. Basic cost controlling techniques have
been established in most organizations but it is now essential for
steering tools and procedures to be aligned to actual business
drivers.
The consolidation impacts on all key business aspects, such as
sales/marketing (e. g. shop consolidation), customer care (e. g.
call centre consolidation), IT (e. g. system consolidation, shared
Operators need to act now in order to realize strategic saving
measures and optimize forthcoming investments related to FTTx
Figure 5. Global examples of new network co-operation models
„ Bell Canada and Telus, two
major CDMA operator, are
jointly deploying a national
HSPA network
„ HSPA network go-live expected
for early 2010 on 1900 MHz and
850 MHz
„ Network is planned to be
upgraded to LTE at a later stage
Source: Arthur D. Little
3 Cost Reduction in the Telecom Industry
„ Orange UK and T-Mobile UK
are planning to merge in a
50/50 joint venture
„ Expected key benefits will
derive from joint network
activities (including site
rationalization and backhaul)
„ EUR 270 mio. OPEX and
CAPEX savings projected p.a.
starting from 2015
„ Tele2 and Telenor build joint
venture for LTE rollout
„ Rollout starts in 2009, service
launch expected for end 2010
with focus on USB data
modems
„ Spectrum sharing in the 900
MHz and 2.6 GHz band
„ Planned LTE coverage of 99%
of population by 2013
„ Genius Brand, a joint venture
between PCCW and Hutchison,
won 30 MHz in the 2.1 GHz
band 01/2009
„ Joint venture is expected to
deploy LTE
„ No timeframe committed yet
Telecom & Media Viewpoint
and 4G (e. g. LTE). One CAPEX reduction measure could
be to delay LTE roll-out and to, meanwhile, upgrade HSPA
which requires lower CAPEX needs. There is a window-ofopportunity to leverage substantial cost savings by stepping
into new operating models. Operators are already screening
possibilities for cooperation. If nothing is undertaken, there is a
high probability that required synergies will be lost and potential
partners will team-up with competitors.
Arthur D. Little has successfully managed the process of OPEX
and CAPEX optimization with many operators.
Side box:
Case study – Barriers to overcome when
consolidating wireline & wireless organizations
Contacts
Karim Taga
Managing Partner TIME practice
taga.karim@adlittle.com
Dr. Michael Opitz
Director TIME practice
opitz.michael@adlittle.com
Jesus Portal
Partner TIME practice
portal.jesus@adlittle.com
Technology barrier
By nature there is a significant difference based on the
technology itself and related physics. The challenge for a
successful integration lies in finding and consolidating the
relevant competences that are overlapping (e. g. rollout
supervising, supplier management) and maintaining the
individual activities specific to the technology (e. g. radio site
approval, splicing).
Thomas Kuruvilla
Cultural barrier
Clemens Boehmer
Managing Partner TIME and S&O practice
kuruvilla.thomas@adlittle.com
Additional author
A substantial discrepancy, most particularly for all wireless
and wireline operations, is the difference in company
culture. Wireline operators build on a long tradition within
the telecommunications industry with substantial resources
already invested in deploying and maintaining remote
telecommunication elements. Wireless operators however,
have been active for only a couple of years and developed their
wireless infrastructure based on a smaller number of network
building elements.
Operating model barrier
Arthur D. Little
As a result of the different company cultures there is also a
huge difference with regard to business and operating models.
Wireline operators cover more activities in-house compared to
wireless operators. One example is the rollout of infrastructure,
which is often planned, designed and executed in-house
by wireline players and outsourced to turn-key-providers by
wireless operators. A consolidation and alignment of processes
therefore has to cease one or the other operating model.
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Political barrier
The excess of management shouldn’t be underestimated.
As wireless and wireline responsibilities are merged, there
are suddenly two management resources available to take
responsibility. Often one can observe that interim organizational
units will be formed to accommodate and maintain both
management resources. This postpones the effective fixedmobile consolidation further and reduces the risk of a big bang
approach when consolidating the organization.
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